One day before the Olympic opening ceremony, the buzz on the towpath beside the Vaires-sur-Marne course was all about Romania’s crew changes. Just over three hours before the draw, sneaking inside the official deadline, the Romanian line-ups as entered on 8^th July were dramatically altered, the women’s group dropping from 21 athletes to 13, in which most of the oarswomen will be doubling up between the small boats (pair, double and four) and the eight.

This followed several days in Vaires during which the Romanian women’s eight wasn’t seen out training. The only Romanian women’s crews on the water were some completely predictable small boats, prompting suggestions that the squad which has ended up competing was perhaps always the one planned. And that in turn has started other teams muttering about the significant competitive advantage obtained.

So, let’s explain the rules. Until three hours before the draw, a crew whose places at the Games were secured during the previous year’s qualifying worlds can legitimately swap accredited athletes between boats, including doubling up, as per usual worlds rules. Although occasionally used by small countries (notably Lithuania has been famous for dithering between doubling up their top rowers or selecting others), it’s rare. In the big teams rowers fight tooth and nail to get a seat in one specific crew and then, after selection, normally stay there barring unexpected emergencies.

But on and off for nearly thirty years Romania has been doing it differently, doubling up repeatedly at both the worlds and Olympics. At Seoul in 1988 six of their silver-medal eight also got small-boat medals, a feat repeated at the next worlds. At Sydney in 2000 their pair secured W2- and W8+ gold, where incidentally the Romanian women single-handedly accounted for Romania coming top of the entire medal table (the men took no medals). They pulled the same trick off again in 2004, but then entered a drier Olympic period caused by other countries investing in their women’s rowing, and even the Romanian worlds doubling was heavily reduced.

That was until last summer when they dabbled in heavy doubling up again, securing six of their eleven men’s and women’s Olympic qualification places with just 16 rowers and two coxes. In total the Romanian women of 2023 bagged four medals from a tight squad of ten women and a cox and nearly all of them were in action at the 2024 Europeans this summer in Szeged where they captured another four medals in virtually identical combinations.

Yet when the 2024 Olympic entries were published on 8^th July, all those recently successful crews had been broken up, and the squad featured an assortment of extra people rarely seen in the Romanian championship crews. Some near retirement, others much less experienced. It didn’t seem at all plausible, particularly when the women’s crews training on the Games lake this week were the ones we’ve seen on so many podiums. What was going on? On the morning of the opening ceremony, Row360 spoke to Romanian head coach Antonio Colamonici, with interesting results.

“No it is not normal, but it’s not very normal that in the world championships with eight men and eight women I’m able to qualify six boats. And so this is an exception I deserve with the kind of qualification I have,” he explained, referring to the 2023 feat his squad pulled off, before going on to hint at a lengthy and difficult selection process.

Earlier this season the Romanian women’s squad based on the 2023 worlds successes claimed a big handful of medals at the European championships, while a totally different eight at the first world cup regatta failed to hit the same heights. Colamonici’s selection issue — how to get the best speed in four of his women’s events — must have been like doing a ten-dimensional jigsaw.

Row360 coverage of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games

“I saw that with fresh athletes the boat was not on the same level as with tired athletes. These [tired, doubling up] athletes, weaker [i.e. more tired], are stronger than other athletes, fresh.” It won’t be the first time a coach has found that the top performers can beat anyone, even when they’ve done twice as much work on the water.

All that testing and training, and Colamonici has ended up with virtually the same crews again. Maybe he could have worked it out more than a month ago, though he claims that would have been impossible. But there’s another side to their strategy, which is very advantageous.

“The last cycle of training before going to the Games is very complicated because athletes are very motivated and sometimes it’s difficult to manage the situation,” Colamonici explained. “I must be sure that if something happen, I can resolve the problem in good time. Because there’s one rule, that I can change 50% of the crew until three hours before the race, but only with athletes that are in the competition.”

Unlike the worlds system, at the Olympics and Paralympics there are two types of athletes, which limits options for subs. Athletes selected for crews will get full (Aa) accreditation beforehand and the only permitted spares, with partial (Ap) accreditation, are very limited in number (maximum two women and two men for a big team like Romania’s).

Ap athletes aren’t Olympians, aren’t fully accredited, and under what’s called the Late Athlete Replacement (LAR) policy, if they are used in a crew to substitute for a rower with a medical issue, the Ap becomes a permanent member of the crew and can’t be replaced with the original person even if they recover. Contrast that with the worlds where ill athletes can bounce back into racing crews if they recover quickly. The only way round the “permanent replacement” problem at the Games is to make your substitution with a fully-accredited Aa athlete, which in most teams would impact another crew.

But Romania doesn’t have to worry about that. As well as their four official Ap spares, they now have eleven more — eight women and three men — who have full Aa status and yet aren’t in crews. They enjoy full privileges, unlike the Ap spares who are sidelined as a matter of Olympic policy. Should any of Romania’s crews need a sub, they’re ready and waiting, rested and happy, able to train every day on the Vaires course. The coach takes the attitude that this is a bonus he and Romania have earned through the exceptional achievements of his 2023 worlds squad.

“Naturally they must continue to train because they are with us,” says Colamonici. “But it is fantastic to give opportunity of very young people to take part in this fantastic event. The important is participation. For me it was wonderful to permit under-23s to understand what it means to participate in the Olympic Games. So I believe it’s the best thing we can do and I’m very proud of it.”

“The rule was not developed for this purpose and it’s definitely not in the spirit [of the regulations],” said Jean-Christophe Rolland, president of World Rowing, which has also been asked whether earlier filing of the changes could have allowed other crews to be invited to the Games to fill the empty athlete quota places. This might also have rebalanced the lost gender diversity.

There is clear disapproval of their methods but for now Romania has not broken any rules, they’ve just taken full advantage of a loophole created by doing something most rowing countries would regard as impossible: doubling up.

“I’m so sorry for everyone [else] that maybe no have advantage for the situation. Everything was late but it was honest and I respect the rules,” added Colamonici. “After [the Games] if someone wants to change the rules is okay but I don’t think this is the case.” And he pointed out how difficult doubling up is (correct, most teams simply don’t consider it), meaning doubled-up qualifications and therefore late competitor switches like this are rarely possible.

Mind you, the suggestion that one day all eights might be compelled to use four to six athletes who have already raced in other events, to reduce the rowing contingent overall, has come up more than once in the last eight years, and may yet happen. The Romanians would have one hell of a built-in advantage if that came to pass.

At least Romania carefully obeying the rule about World Rowing needing three hours notice of changes before the draw has negated any unfairness in the seeding for this Olympic regatta. Seeding was clearly recalculated before the draw took place, to restore the top Romanian combinations to their rightful places and avoid any opening heats accidentally containing too many mega-quick crews.

What next for Colamonici and his squad? The one problem they might have is weather, not illness or injury. If a doubled-up athlete does have a medical issue they’d be expected to be substituted in both their crews, but that could be by two different athletes, under the rules, and the team has plenty of accredited bodies ready and waiting. But in theory thunderstorms currently being predicted for Wednesday might make life difficult for Romania, if a schedule change pushes those races, including the pairs semis, onto the Thursday. That date is already a major headache for Colamonici and his canny team manager/performance director Dorin Alupei, because Thursday holds both the eights reps, and an hour later the doubles and fours medal races.

The only way to avoid a clash, assuming their W2x and W4- are likely to make the finals with good medal chances, is to win Monday’s W8+ heat against the USA, potentially a very tough race. A lightning-induced reshuffling of races could make it even harder, adding the pairs semis to the mix. Colamonici had an answer for that though: “In that case we make one decision. Naturally I hope that doesn’t happen. But if it did then one crew must be sacrificed, I’m so sorry.” Under the circumstances it’s not obvious how sympathetic other teams would be if the schedule does have to change.

It’s unusual for legitimate racing loopholes to be exploited so dramatically by a team, meaning that future tweaks to prevent a repeat can’t be ruled out. But World Rowing rules can’t currently change except at the Quadrennial (used to be Extraordinary) Congress meeting. The next one will be held in March 2025 in Seville. There will be a lot of talking going on before then.

This article was updated on Saturday 27 July